The Normal - Warm Leatherette

Working in his North London bedroom, Daniel Miller, aka the Normal, created "T.V.O.D." and "Warm Leatherette", the two sides of his self-released debut single as the Normal.
The Normal's sound was electropunk. "Warm Leatherette" especially - all harsh stabs of analog-synth distortion and dispassionately perverse lyrics about the eroticism of car accidents, via Ballard's Crash - could hardly have been further from the floridly romantic keyboard synth arpeggios of prog rock.
The single did unexpectedly well, selling thirty thousand copies, and inadvertently turned Miller into the CEO of his own record label. Mute Records was the name he'd put on the back of the single, along with his home address. Many people assumed Mute was a proper record label specializing in weird electropop. Within a week of the release of "Warm Leatherette" all kind of peculiar demo tapes started arriving in the mail.

The Normal - Warm Leatherette - 1978


The Normal - T.V.O.D. - 1978

Scenes from Rip It Up and Start Again - An introduction

Today I started reading Simon Reynolds' book "Rip It Up And Start Again - Post Punk 1978-1984". From the first pages I noticed that there was something missing: I had never heard the majority of the bands or songs he was talking about and therefore could only have a partial comprehension of the music the author described. That's how I had the idea to start this project, with the aim to provide readers with an useful audiovisual companion while reading the book.
Each day I will post audio and video links of the music Reynolds describes in his book, together with some quotes from "Rip It Up And Start Again". Hopefully, this will allow readers to have a better understanding of the music that is so thoroughly described in the book.